Willamette Valley Great Dane Club

Pano – Panosteitis

Pano is a growth issue as a result of too rapid growth during puppyhood. It causes lameness and a lack of energy. Pano usually is self-limiting, meaning it ends up spontaneously resolving, but the condition is quite painful and pain medication and anti-inflammatory drugs may be needed. These are painful conditions of the bones that occur during the rapid growth phase of puppyhood causing lameness and general malaise.

Pano can be avoided by careful proper nutrition during the rapid growth phases. There is quite a lot of information available on Giant Breed puppy nutrition. In summary there are two schools of thought either a low fat, low protein food or a low calcium, low phosphorus food. You can choose to follow one of the two schools of thought and feed recommended foods or you can actually find foods that are low fat, low protein, low calcium, low phosphorus. Great Danes will grow large, don’t try to encourage their rate of growth or feed them to grow as large as possible. Pano is actually the lesser of a couple of orthopedic growth related diseases. Permanent damage can occur in cases of HOD – Hypertrophic Osteodystrophy.